however, as far I can see, .NET - Crystal Reports- is a lot slower for reports than the VFP report writer is.
There has to be a better way, and I just havent found it.

In the beginning, because of the learning curve, that's true, and likely to be true for many tools.

However, the development process and performance with .NET/CR can be just as good as with the VFP report writer - not to mention that CR is a more robust and more full-featured report writer than what Fox has (and that's nothing against Fox, the VFP RW is a good one....CR is simply better)